mexico

Previous service projects

- Teaching English, art, and mathematics to children at various levels

- Working with farmers to enrich and share agricultural techniques

- Mechanical skills lessons

- Organizing and facilitating activities for children at local school

- Community outreach and development

national flag

languages

Spanish

capital

Mexico City

When I see men here working hard everyday to support their struggling families and make a better life for them, I see a kind of courage that´s beyond admirable. I see courage in the faces of the women who go on working even when they have husbands who have given up or become abusive with drinking. Children head off to Mexico city or Oaxaca to try to earn money for their families.

The oldest daughter of the woman I was staying with is fourteen. She left last Saturday for a place near Oaxaca where she will work in the house of a doctor tending children and cleaning. She will earn 50 pesos a day. That´s under five dollars, less than the minimum hourly wage in the States. They go on laboring in these conditions in the face of tremendous odds, without opportunities, money or good fortune, knowing full well that they are unlikely to escape this poverty in their lifetimes. To me that makes them a rare breed of hero.

I am seeing now that the blessings I've been given will never be a free ride but rather that every step we take up the ladder is a mandate to be elevating others with us.